hey will wither if the
roots are not fed. The Reverend Father has no desire, as I understand
him, to abandon the activity of the Order. He is merely anxious to
establish us on a firm basis. The Reverend Brother said that we should
make any sacrifice to maintain the Aldershot house. I have no desire to
accuse the Reverend Brother of inconsistency, but I would ask him if he
is willing to give up the farm, which, as you know, has cost so far a
great deal more than we could afford. But of course the Reverend Brother
would give up the farm. At the same time, we do not want him to give it
up. We realize that under his capable guidance that farm will presently
be a source of profit. Therefore, I beg the Reverend Brother to
understand that I am making a purely rhetorical point when I ask him if
he is prepared to give up the farm. I repeat, we do not want the farm
given up.

"Another point which I feel has been missed. In giving up Aldershot, we
are not giving up active work entirely. We have a good deal of active
work here. We have our guest-house for casuals, and we are always ready
to feed, clothe, and shelter any old soldiers who come to us. We are
still young as an Order. We have only four professed monks, including
the Reverend Father. We want to have more than that before we can
consider ourselves established. I for one should hesitate to take my
final vows until I had spent a long time in strict religious
preparation, which in the hurry and scurry of active work is impossible.
We have listened to a couple of violent speeches, or at any rate to one
violent speech by a brother who was for a year in close touch with
myself. I appeal to him not to drag the discussion down to the level of
lay politics. We are free, we novices, to leave to-morrow. Let us
remember that, and do not let us take advantage of our freedom to impart
to this Mother House of ours the atmosphere of the world to which we may
return when we will.

"And let us remember when we oppose the judgment of the Reverend Father
that we are exalting ourselves without reason. Let us remember that it
is he who by his eloquence and by his devotion and by his endurance and
by his personality, has given us this wonderful house. Are we to turn
round and say to him who has worked so hard for us that we do not want
his gifts, that we are such wonderful fishers of men that we can be
independent of him? Oh, my dear Brethren, let me beg you to vote in
favour of abandoning al